Sri Lanka celebrates 60 years of independence (04.02.2008)

Sri Lanka celebrates 60 years of independence and the "Society for Threatened Peoples” warned on Monday of a "total war” in the island state. "Terror attacks, arbitrary arrests on account of the wrong ethnic background, abductions, forcible recruitment of children, threats against journalists, censure, murder of human rights workers, expulsion, impunity and the blocking of food deliveries are spreading mistrust and hatred between the ethnic groups”, said the GfbV Asia correspondent, Ulrich Delius. Sri Lanka will sink into chaos and violence if the government insists on a military solution to the crushing of the Tamil liberation movement, Liberation Movement Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and rejects negotiations. Humanitarian international law is already being violated systematically in the island state. The protection of the civilian population is being disregarded by all parties to the conflict.

"This civil war, which has lasted now for 25 years, will not be solved by military means”, said Delius, "and the recent success of the security forces in the fight against the LTTE will change nothing. The more the liberation movement is driven into a corner, the more it will emphasise its power by spectacular terrorist attacks.” Dozens of people have been killed by bombings since the end of the truce on 2nd January. These acts of terror further increase the tension between the majority of the Sinhalese and the Tamil and Moslem minority.

"Since the end of the truce the neutral truce observers from Norway should withdraw. UN human rights observers are urgently needed to prevent at least the worst acts of arbitrariness”, said Delius. However the Sri Lankan authorities refuse all cooperation in this matter. In order to discredit the UN as a reliable partner the government began at the beginning of the year a witch hunt against the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in the media. Louise Arbour was accused of taking sides because she called on all parties to the conflict equally to respect international law.

It is the civilian population which suffers most from the infringement of international law. More than 300,000 people, mainly Tamil, have already been expelled and are now living in camps. The authorities contravened UN conventions in May 2007 by forcibly sending back 90,000 internally displaced persons in the district of Batticaloa although their safety and provision with food were not guaranteed. The Tamils make up about 20 percent of the 20 million inhabitants of Sri Lanka. For decades they have been calling for an end to the discrimination of their minority. The LTTE is fighting for the setting up of an independent Tamil state.